In recent years, a program creation supporting function of a machining program creating apparatus has been improved. For example, an operator can create an NC machining program simply by setting coordinate values of a workpiece (work) in the machining program creating apparatus while looking at manufacturing drawings. There is also a machining program creating apparatus that enables a designer to directly read CAD data modeled using a CAD system and create an NC machining program from the read CAD data.
When causing a machine tool to engrave characters, in order to reduce a machining time as much as possible, there is a demand for creating an NC machining program for moving a tool along as efficient a route as possible.
As a technology related to the demand, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technology for, in continuously subjecting a plurality of sections to be machined of a workpiece to NC machining in a form of using the same tool and reciprocatingly moving the tool a plurality of times for each of the sections to be machined, concerning tool tracks respectively calculated for the sections to be machined, storing the positions of endpoints that could be the machining start points or the machining end points and selecting, as the next machining start point, the endpoint of the tool track of another section to be machined, the endpoint being at the shortest moving distance of the tool from the machining end point of the tool track in one section to be machined.
Patent Literature 2 discloses a technology for, in engraving characters on an object surface, engraving the characters at the engraving depth associated with the thickness of the characters for each of the sections of the characters on the basis of data representing the planar shapes of the characters and data representing the engraving depths of the characters associated with the thicknesses of the sections of the characters.